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Articles. Clippings. Proof of concept.

Just sell wines that people want to buy. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it?

But if you have to spend precious selling time rolling the ball uphill to reach the peak of simply convincing someone to think about maybe buying, then you’ve wasted energy and resources.

Oh, you’ve never heard of Zweigelt? Well, let’s spend fifteen minutes talking about it before I even start to approach ideas of training your team on how to pronounce it and then pray and hope it’s conveyed to the customer … doesn’t work very well.

How is it done better in a sales setting? Articles. Clippings. Proof of concept. These are all time frame compressors because the proof of public curiosity can be seen on the paper. The Wall Street Journal wouldn’t write a whole article about Gruner Veltliner unless there was something good there, right?

Slap down an article about Txakolina from the New York Times and you’ll have a much easier time selling Txakolina.

Show an in-depth essay on Godello from the latest Food and Wine issue and you’ll have a much easier time selling Godello.

There’s no way Zweigelt belongs on the wine by the glass list, because nobody knows it, right? Well, look at this feature article in the local paper about Zweigelt and grilled foods that came out last week. Now how many cases should we start with?

Social proof through articles about a specific wine show proof of concept. It helps smooth out or eliminate pushing the idea uphill. It gets you where you need to be faster: selling wine that people want to buy.

(Hint: if possible have the actual newspaper or magazine in hand. Next best is to have a printout from their website (but still paper), but try to include the header and logos. There is something about that New York Times logo that helps people realize it’s from the Times. Least effective is to just show the article on your phone.)